The return of vampurr - the vampire horror cat T-Shirt

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In 1918 Lady Jane Amsley (Freida Inescort) helps kill Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi) with a stake through the heart and reform his werewolf helper Andreas (don't ask). 26 years later Tesla's stake is accidentally removed during a Nazi bombing and he decides to take revenge on Lady Amsley--through her son and his bride to be (Nina Foch). The Return of the Vampire is a 1943 American horror film directed by Lew Landers and starring Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, Miles Mander, Roland Varno, and Matt Willis. Its plot follows a vampire named Armand Tesla, who has two encounters with Englishwoman Lady Jane Ainsley, the first taking place during World War I, and the second during World War II. Columbia Pictures decided to get into the horror film market that Universal had a corner on and did it with one of the stars that gave them that corner, Bela Lugosi. Though Lugosi only played Count Dracula in one film up to 1944, he created an indelible image as the bloodthirsty count that no one has ever been able to equal.

Lugosi headlines as Armand Tesla, a vampire who was formerly destroyed by a local scientist and his assistant Lady Jane (Frieda Inescort). Many years later, that same assistant, now a scientist in her own right, discovers that the stake used to kill Tesla with has been removed from his dead body, allowing him to once again rise up and feast on the blood of the living. Doing his bidding is a man named Andreas (Matt Willis), a wolfman under Tesla’s command who aids him in capturing the young and beautiful Nikki (Nina Foch), the future wife of Lady Jane’s son. On a Night of Full Moon" was the original demo of "Desecration of Souls" from the Don't Break the Oath album. At the time of the film's release, a critic from The New York Times wrote that nothing need be said about the film beyond its title and star to determine if one is interested in seeing it. [3]The general concensus seems to be that Return of the Vampire is an inferior "unofficial" sequel to Universal's classic version of Dracula, which of course stands as perhaps the foremost cinematic version of Bram Stoker's famous novel. And indeed, Return of the Vampire does borrow a great deal from the Universal film, not the least being Bela Lugosi himself in a virtual reprisal of his celebrated role. That being said, Return of the Vampire is a very effective film in its own right, one which is cleverly written and creatively directed, and which allows Lugosi to effectively enlarge upon his iconic performance as the Prince of Vampires. SPOILER ALERT: By the end, of course, goodness triumphs. The decomp scene with Tesla is great stuff and the look of innocence on Andreas' face ("He found his soul at last.") is really well done. What makes this the best Vampire story? The book was written as a journal of a scientific mind, but one that may be becoming increasingly untrustworthy, like the much later `Lolita.' It is essential to preserve that distance. Film must commit to the reality of the vampire, at least conventional films must. But here, they preserve the notion of text, and the notion of a distance from the `writer.' Tesla is the vampirehunter of old, tainted as a vampire himself. Destroyed, reborn, and now rehaunting the original readers and their friends and offspring.

Hoping to capitalize upon Bela Lugosi’s unparalleled performance as the silver screen’s reigning “Prince of Darkness,” Columbia Pictures released The Return of the Vampire amidst a legal battle with Universal Pictures, which was eventually settled out of court. The film saw mild success during its initial release, but it was bittersweet as it was the last starring role for Lugosi whose career had been circling the drain at Universal for several years anyway.

Rate And Review

As for the good things--the acting is good. Inescort and Foch are very good and Lugosi is excellent (but he always was). Matt Willis is also pretty good as Andreas. The movie looks great and is very atmospheric. Also I like how they worked WWII into the story. I LOVE the glowing crucifix on the organ (always impressed me as a kid) and the final scene is memorable.

The Return of the Vampire is an interesting and entertaining film as it contains many of the usual Dracula-inspired tropes that persevered in many vampire films straight on through to the 1970s, including having Lugosi in his signature Dracula costume, the vampire entering a beautiful woman's bedroom at night for a bite, the vampire being intensely afraid of crosses and crucifixes, and the vampire wishing to take a living woman as his undead bride. However, it manages to shakes things up significantly in a few ways.

In the 18th-century, Dr. Armand Tesla, a "depraved" Romanian scientist, developed an unhealthy obsession with the supernatural--vampires in particular--and became a foul creature of the night shortly after his death. Flash forward to 1918 and Tesla, with the help of his rather pathetic werewolf slave, has relocated to a desolate cemetery in London. After preying on the young niece of the intrepid scientist Walter Saunders, who immediately deduces a vampire is on the loose, Saunders and his colleague Lady Jane Ainsley find the vampire in his lair & drive a spike through his heart. So many great touches in this movie, from the means by which the Dracula surrogate Tesla is "unearthed" (by means of a German bomb during WW2!) to the inventive use of an articulate werewolf (masterfully portrayed by character actor Matt Willis) as Tesla's Renfield. In his book Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen, David J. Skal writes: